No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Spirituality, Gender, and Expressive Selfhood
Abstract
This article discusses contemporary spiritualities, focusing in particular on the recent growth of practices attending to “mind, body, and sprit” and centered on the goal of “holistic well-being.” We argue that the growing popularity of such “holistic spirituality” since the 1980s can be greatly illuminated by reference to Charles Taylor's account of the expressive mode of modern selfhood. Taylor's account is limited, however, by its inability to explain why women are disproportionately active within the sphere of holistic spirituality. By paying closer attention to gender, we seek to refine Taylor's approach and to advance our understanding of contemporary spirituality. Drawing on findings from two qualitative studies of holistic spirituality and health carried out in the United Kingdom, this article offers an analysis of what the “subjective turn” may mean for women. We argue that holistic spiritualities align with traditional spheres and representations of femininity, while simultaneously supporting and encouraging a move away from selfless to expressive selfhood. By endorsing and sanctioning “living life for others” and “living life for oneself,” holistic spiritualities offer a way of negotiating dilemmas of selfhood that face many women — and some men—in late modern contexts.
... The first is the transcendence of the self, i.e. a belief that one is connected to other people, ideas, nature, or some kind of "higher power" (Ashforth & Pratt, 2003). Closely linked to this is an emphasis on authentic selfhood and inner wisdom, and on connecting with these inner depths (Sointu & Woodhead, 2008;Flere & Kirbiš, 2009;Houtman & Aupers, 2007). Secondly, people who embrace self-spirituality tend to be committed to a vision of authentic selfhood-in-relation. ...
... Secondly, people who embrace self-spirituality tend to be committed to a vision of authentic selfhood-in-relation. Such relationality is conceived as fundamentally small-scale and egalitarian in outlook (Sointu & Woodhead, 2008). The third overarching dimension is holism and harmony, i.e. the integration of different aspects of one's self into a coherent and symbiotic conception of the self (Ashforth & Pratt, 2003;Flere & Kirbiš, 2009). ...
... The third overarching dimension is holism and harmony, i.e. the integration of different aspects of one's self into a coherent and symbiotic conception of the self (Ashforth & Pratt, 2003;Flere & Kirbiš, 2009). This dimension includes a focus on the body (Sointu & Woodhead, 2008). The fourth dimension is a belief in personal growth: a clear sense of what one seeks to become, and what one needs to do in order to achieve self-actualization (Ashforth & Pratt, 2003). ...
... Even cultural studies analyses of gender and New Age spirituality from scholars such as Andrew Ross (1991) and Kimberley Lau (2000) are, as Crowley identifies them, usually 'cursory and bleak' (Crowley, 2011: 3). Sointu and Woodhead (2008) push back against the claims of narcissism routinely levelled at holistic spiritual practices. While acknowledging that these practices are 'both self-centred and concerned with a self-fulfilment of a directly sensuous kind' (Sointu and Woodhead, 2008: 272), they highlight that the narcissistic critique (stemming from the work of Charles Taylor and others) is premised on a celebration of a masculine subject and the condemnation of 'feminized expressions of the subjective turn' (Sointu and Woodhead, 2008: 272). ...
... Sointu notes that women dominate holistic health as both clients and practitioners and this is also evident in the earlier work of the Religious Studies scholars Heelas and Woodhead (2005). Women's disproportionate involvement in wellness-seeking 'can readily be conceptualised as a negotiation of the traditional discourse of caring femininity in a setting that simultaneously reproduces many of the cultural competencies already associated with femininity' (Sointu, 2011: 257 and see also Sointu and Woodhead, 2008). At the same time, wellness that is sought via alternative or complementary medicine 'places the unique self of the client at the centre' and is defined for Sointu through values 'such as individual fulfilment, freedom, agency and control' which signifies a 'feminised setting that also conflicts with traditional discourses of other-directed femininity' (Sointu, 2011: 257, emphasis added). ...
... Class is a prominent feature in other studies of New Age spirituality and therapeutics. Sointu and Woodhead's (2008) research into holistic spiritualities found that New Age medicine was overwhelmingly consumed by a middle-class clientele. Salmenniemi's (2017) study of 'therapeutic engagements' in post-Soviet Russia also elicited a largely middle-class cohort. ...
In this article, I’ll outline the phenomenon of ‘cosmic wellness’ which is now visible across on- and offline spaces that promote health and well-being products and practices to women. Cosmic wellness is a broad constellation of media, discourse, imagery, materials and foods (including crystals, dust and herbs) produced primarily by white, wealthy women. On the one hand, cosmic wellness can be read as a digital food culture that offers healthy and potentially necessary responses to fiercely neoliberal modes of working and living. But conversely, it is framed as the newest example of narcissistic self-absorption and, more seriously, as unhealthy and dangerous. Cosmic wellness is founded on various beliefs, including the moral necessity of pursuing the optimisation of self and the power of markets to provide the ingredients, tools and practices to achieve it. It is connected to histories that chart the incorporation of New Age health and well-being practices into ‘mainstream’ forms of lifestyle production and consumption and the simultaneous derision of these practices, especially when used and promoted by women. But there is also something new about cosmic wellness, especially as it is visible online on platforms such as Instagram. In the article, I outline the key features of cosmic wellness and analyse its contemporary cultural purchase, using theories of digital food cultures, spiritual production and consumption, postfeminism and critical whiteness studies. The article then conducts empirical analysis of a series of Instagram posts from one prominent space in which cosmic wellness currently circulates: Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle and wellness business Goop.
... At the same time alternative medicine and esoteric well-being is often assumed to be attractive to women because it is coherent with normative femininity (being caring and gentle, having strong communication skills, taking emotions seriously, and seeking to care for rather than cure) as well as it legitimizes the relationality that women are socialized to embody in care-giving in their feminine gender role (Sointu and Woodhead 2008). It is important to stress that recommending against vaccination is common amongst esoteric well-being practitioners (Ernst, 2001). ...
... Alternative medicine care is often assumed to offer attributes that are commonly identified with normative femininity, that is, being caring, being gentle, having strong communication skills, taking emotions seriously, and seeking to care for rather than cure (Shuval & Gross, 2008, p. 51). It is theorized to be attractive to women because it is coherent with, and legitimizes, the relationality that women are socialized to embody in their caregiving but at the same time validates notions of self-care which subvert the stereotypical care role and recognize the importance of a woman thinking about her own well-being rather than that of her dependents (Sointu & Woodhead, 2008). ...
Anti-vaccination sentiments have grown strong in public discourse in recent decades and especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, as online environment has proved to be the fertile setting for spreading conspiracy theories and false news. Anti-vaccine groups are using social networks to spread dubious health information, creating their own content without any evidence to confuse users who access their pages (Ortiz-Sánchez, Velando-Soriano et.al, 2020). Recent surveys found men were more likely to take the Covid-19 vaccine, compared to women (National Geographic survey, Gallup poll, Pew Survey, etc.), whilst existing studies show that the "vast majority" of people commenting, sharing, and liking anti-vaccination information on Facebook are women. Therefore, it is essential to comprehend, how notions about femininity and motherhood relate to decisions about vaccination.
... En el contexto de esta popularización, la mayor presencia de mujeres en la espiritualidad holística es confirmada por estudios internacionales (Crowley, 2011). Esta oferta espiritual otorga legitimidad y, al mismo tiempo, desafía prácticas y representaciones tradicionales de la feminidad, ofreciendo formas de negociar dilemas subjetivos como la tensión entre "vivir para otros" y "vivir para una misma" (Fedele y Knibbe, 2013;Sointu y Woodhead, 2008). Esta espiritualidad posibilita la expresión de valores como la realización personal, el placer corporal, la autenticidad y la libertad, junto con la importancia del cuidado de la salud. ...
... 71 experiencias y energías. Como sostienen otras investigaciones, las prácticas de salud que se desarrollan en los espacios de espiritualidad femenina sirven para otorgar valor al self en la forma de trabajo corporal, con su invitación a "conectar y explorar con el cuerpo" (Sointu y Woodhead, 2008). Para construir "conciencia" y autoconocimiento sobre el propio cuerpo, las facilitadoras invitan a llevar adelante ciertas prácticas y experiencias corporales: la confección del propio calendario menstrual, prácticas de meditación para percibir los movimientos del útero, la utilización de la copa menstrual o toallas de tela para entrar en contacto con la sangre menstrual, registrar los fluidos corporales y los estados de ánimo, emociones y sueños en cada etapa del ciclo, terapias con huevos de obsidiana, la exploración del autoplacer, entre otras. ...
This article analyzes the definitions and practices oriented to sexual and reproductive healthcare of women and the healing of situations experienced around bodily processes such as menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth and abortion. All these definitions and practices are proposed in women's circles and networks for the dissemination of feminine spirituality. It is based on qualitative research carried out in the City of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, between 2014 and 2021. Various techniques for data collection, such as participant observation in women's circles and interviews to their facilitators and participants are applied in this research. In addition, we analyzed the contents shared by the facilitators in their social networks, and books that are part of their training. Findings are discussed and understood under the light of an arena of popularization of definitions and practices of feminine spirituality, social and political recognitions of feminisms, and public policies on sexual and reproductive health in contemporary Argentina.
... Connected to the rising importance of spirituality and its experiential framing of the sacred, concepts such as the body, practice and embodiment have also witnessed a resurgence of interest in recent decades among sociologists of religion (Ammerman 2014(Ammerman , 2020Giordan 2009;Mellor and Shilling 1997McGuire 1990McGuire , 2008McGuire , 2016Sointu and Woodhead 2008;Winchester 2008;Winchester and Pagis 2022;Wuthnow 2020). For instance, as Daniel Winchester (2008, p. 66) notes, "Within the broader field of the sociology of religion, 'practice' has become a key term, even vying to supplant concepts such as 'belief', 'doctrine', 'creeds', 'texts,' and 'symbols' as the central category around which to empirically and theoretically approach religion". ...
Modern postural yoga, a body-mind practice developed in the last hundred and fifty years at the intersection of therapeutic, fitness and spiritual logics, is experiencing an unprecedented worldwide diffusion, including in Italy. This article, relying on discourse analysis of three yoga manuals and twenty-seven biographical interviews of yoga practitioners, aims at exploring yoga's positioning in the Italian context, with particular attention paid to its practical-discursive construction as a contemporary form of spiritualities of the body, defined as spiritualities oriented towards practitioners' 'unmediated' relationship with the sacred and the cultivation of well-being through "body work". More specifically, the article investigates the "cultural pragmatics" of a selection of Italian yoga manuals, scripted performances (regarding health and spirituality) capable of directly influencing and impacting practitioners' "social imaginaries" of yoga in their everyday practice. In so doing, it also contributes to discussing the circular and reciprocal relationship between "discourses" and "practices" within specific contexts of practice, such as yoga classes and teacher training courses. The article concludes by emphasizing which conceptualizations of health and spirituality are promoted, transmitted and in turn embodied during yoga practice, the role of health discourses and pedagogies in the professionalization of yoga and the growing practical-discursive construction of the yoga teacher as a spiritual director and health expert.
... 263-64) was important in the development of a certain line of thought. Sointu and Woodhead (2008) defend that Taylor's critique of contemporary forms of expressive selfhood seems to be shaped by a lingering attachment to the masculinist hero of Romanticism. ...
This article explores the notion of the “magic of a place” and the way a space attracts groups and individuals who follow various forms of vernacular or lived religion and spirituality. The space is Sintra, an “enchanted” mountain facing the westernmost point of Europe, the Roca Cape. Classified by UNESCO as Cultural Landscape, Sintra is a unique place, a “sensuous sacred geography”; its sacredness comes from its natural setting, combined with historical layers of religious use and the way these are nowadays interpreted by individuals who live spirituality as “sensational forms” (configurations of imaginations and sensations in a context of religious and spiritual traditions). Thought of as an encapsulated magical place where innumerous groups perform their ceremonies, meditations, and spiritual retreats, Sintra is a scenario where Tweed’s discussion on the sacredness of a place is highly suitable and transreligiosity and spiritual elasticity are the norm. Furthermore, through the ethnographic data presented, we will see how, within this “spiritual elasticity” directly relating to the astonishing nature of the Sintra mountain, individuals find relief for their personal crises or their collective eco-anxiety.
... In this previous research, both clients and therapeutic service producers have been studied. However, the research on service providers has mainly focused on CAM practices, where the borders between healers and the healed are often shifting and porous (e.g., Kalvig 2012;Sointu and Woodhead 2008;Utriainen 2017). ...
In this article, we apply and assess the concept of transreligiosity in the study of formally educated and licensed psychologists and psychotherapists in Finland who integrate mindfulness practices in their professional toolkit. Our analytical focus complements the discussion on the use of religious and spiritual traditions as therapeutic resources by turning scholarly attention from individual coping tools to the professional skills of therapeutic work and from complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practices to mainstream health care and education. In the field of mindfulness research, we add to the cumulative body of ethnographic approaches by analyzing the mindfulness-related individual learning paths of mental health professionals through qualitative interview data. Based on our analysis, we conclude that the professional skills of using mindfulness practices in secular health care and education can result from transreligious learning trajectories, in which psychologists and psychotherapists supplement science-based academic education with learning in Buddhist communities and training with Buddhist teachers. This role of Buddhist environments and resources points to a blind spot in the current understanding of adult and professional learning, in which the value and position of religious traditions as possible complementary sources of professional knowledge and skills are not sufficiently recognized.
... Las medicinas "alternativas" construyen a sus pacientes de manera que los alejan del modelo del sick role médico convencional. El nuevo paciente estaría empoderado, sería consciente y responsable por sus experiencias y percepciones de la enfermedad o su malestar (Sointu y Woodhead, 2008). En esta misma línea, Mónica Cornejo Valle y Maribel Blázquez Rodríguez señalan que "CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicines) y new age coinciden en el empoderamiento de pacientes y creyentes, que pasan a convertirse en agentes activos de sus procesos de curación o de salvación de una forma más efectiva de la que se ha dado antes" (2014, p. 22). ...
En el marco de la proliferación contemporánea de prácticas y discursos ligados a las medicinas tradicionales, alternativas y/o complementarias dentro de las sociedades occidentales, este trabajo explora las prácticas y representaciones terapéuticas de las participantes de una formación en plantas medicinales. Se trata de una formación dictada en una localidad de la provincia de Córdoba, Argentina. Se aborda el análisis a partir de un enfoque etnográfico, lo que comprende entrevistas en profundidad a las participantes de la formación, observación participante de todos los encuentros que se llevaron a cabo en dicho espacio y la indagación de los materiales bibliográficos allí́ ofrecidos. El escrito analiza cómo las participantes llegaron a este espacio, a partir de las trayectorias de los itinerarios terapéuticos, profundizando en los marcos de entendimiento previos que posibilitaban ciertas configuraciones. Problematiza, además, las construcciones de nociones como sanar que allí́ se elaboraban, como forma de entender la ‘salud’ de manera amplia y holística, que excede la mera ausencia de enfermedad, ligado a la idea y propósito de resolver el malestar de raíz. Por último, aborda la dimensión política que para las participantes de la formación implicaban las distintas formas de atender los procesos de salud-enfermedad-atención, en la búsqueda de posicionarse desde un lugar activo y protagónico.
... Las medicinas "alternativas" construyen a sus pacientes de manera que los alejan del modelo del sick role médico convencional. El nuevo paciente estaría empoderado, sería consciente y responsable por sus experiencias y percepciones de la enfermedad o su malestar (Sointu y Woodhead, 2008). En esta misma línea, Mónica Cornejo Valle y Maribel Blázquez Rodríguez señalan que "CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicines) y new age coinciden en el empoderamiento de pacientes y creyentes, que pasan a convertirse en agentes activos de sus procesos de curación o de salvación de una forma más efectiva de la que se ha dado antes" (2014, p. 22). ...
Suplemento especial de Cuadernos Médico Sociales, dedicado a Antropología de la Salud
... The holistic spirituality and well-being associated with yoga generally fit with traditional feminine ideals [40,66], which is a reason why yoga is often stereotyped as a feminine activity. This stereotyping could act as a barrier to participation to some men, especially if they hold strong traditional masculine beliefs [67]. ...
Yoga is a traditional practice from India with the potential to promote physical activity and health. Participation worldwide remains low, particularly among men. To better understand yoga participation parameters, with a special focus on what influences male participation, this study examined gender differences in participation motives and conformity to masculine norms. It also explored these factors across three participant subgroups who differed in their engagement with the physical and the more psycho-spiritual aspects of yoga. A total of 546 yoga participants (138 males, 399 females, 9 others), 18–73 years old, completed an online survey that included an adapted version of the Exercise Motivation Inventory–2 and three subscales from the Conformity to Masculine Norms Inventory–46. Results showed significant gender differences in participation motives and conformity to masculine norms. Females were more motivated by positive affect, health/fitness, nimbleness, mind–body integration, and coping/stress management, whereas males were more motivated by supplementary activity and competition/social recognition. These differences should be considered in tailoring messages to promote uptake and continued participation. Furthermore, males were more likely than females to conform to emotional control and heterosexual self-presentation masculine norms. Future research may examine how differences in masculine norm adherence influences uptake, particularly among men.
... As for the other factors-gender, educational attainment, and age-the sociology of religion has largely demonstrated that they also affect religious identity and practice. As for gender let us just briefly recall that the holistic milieu is primarily made up of women (Woodhead 2007a(Woodhead , 2007bSointu and Woodhead 2008;Stolz and Monnot 2019). Moreover, findings also show that women of higher social status tend to be more personally concerned about environmental issues than men (Blocker and Eckberg 1997). ...
This article examines the emergence, in the Swiss context, of a new category of ecologically oriented 'spiritual' activists. The authors look at empirical studies conducted internationally on the link between religion and environmentalism and argue that 'spiritually oriented activists' are rarely investigated in quantitative studies. The authors then examine the findings of a case study of local milieus in two Swiss cities and nationwide data collected as part of the Swiss Household Panel (SHP). They close the gap between results coming from case studies, on the one hand, and representative studies, on the other, by introducing the variable of spiritua-lity into quantitative research. The results suggest that an ecological milieu is emerging comprised of people who are located politically on the left, do not self-identify as religious, but nonetheless practice meditation and have holistic feelings. The forms of spirituality practiced by these ecologists are 'subtle' in the sense of being adaptable, located in the background, and supportive of sustainability.
... While this implies an open-minded and welcoming approach to anyone regardless of age, gender, fitness level, etc., at the same time, there may be an implicit reliance on those who will naturally find their way to these practices through personal networks and/or an affinity with holistic philosophies. It is likely that without explicit efforts to attract specific subpopulations, participants will be disproportionally from populations that are naturally attracted to physical activity (e.g., those more active in general, well-educated, and more affluent [52]) and to alternative approaches to health or spirituality (e.g., women, the well-educated [53,54]). Offering sessions at seasonal events with multiple activities or as part of a community centre program, as identified in this study, may help put HMPs on the radar of a wider group of people. ...
Holistic movement practices (HMPs) are an emerging category of physical activity, contributing to the diversification of physical activity opportunities. Purposefully incorporating not only physical but also mental, social, and/or spiritual elements, HMPs have received limited research attention with respect to participation parameters. The purpose of this study was to begin to map HMPs’ participation potential by exploring the provision features of HMPs in Melbourne. Data were collected via internet searches, with a focus on events offered. Event features, including type, cost, duration, venue address, and target groups, were recorded. Associated neighbourhood characteristics were also explored by linking venue locations to selected census information. Provision was documented for Yoga and Pilates in central Melbourne (1011 events), for Tai Chi and Qigong (323 events), and for a range of smaller HMPs (149 events) across Greater Melbourne. Results indicated a wide range in provision features. Affinities with the holistic nature of HMPs were noticeable in venue choices and neighbourhood socio-demographics. Mention of specific target groups was infrequent. Results are discussed in light of implications for uptake. HMPs exemplify the increasing diversity of physical activity opportunities in modern-day societies. Further research to elucidate their place in the landscape of physical activities is warranted.
... Females are more likely than males to use social networks for spiritual issues, engage in spiritual practices, and experience spiritual growth (Crosby & Smith, 2015). Females are also more likely to be conflicted between selfless caring for others and developing their own selfhood (Sointu & Woodhead, 2008). The final sample was 87 females from 18 to 23 years old. ...
What role does the internet play in developing a spiritual blueprint of meaningful beliefs for decisions in the daily life of family and consumer sciences (FCS) college students? Does it influence their spiritual blueprint positively or negatively? What online spiritual activities do students engage in most frequently? A selective sample of 87 female students with some interest in spirituality completed a researcher-designed questionnaire. Fifty-five of these students indicated they were "committed" to a form of spirituality and 32 indicated they were open and "exploring." Committed participants were significantly more likely to use the internet for spiritual guidance. All participants considered the internet to be more positive than negative influence in developing a spiritual blueprint that was useful to their daily life. Recommendations are provided for FCS departments related to formal courses, nonacademic settings and programs, and educational activities to help students develop a blueprint of spiritual guidelines.
... The focus on being 'true to oneself' reflects a certain understanding of the self which Charles Taylor encapsulates as the 'subjective turn' in which ideas of inner originality and authenticity have become privileged modes of self-expression in the modern west (Taylor 1989(Taylor , 1992. Scholarly accounts have pointed out the gender-blindness of Taylor's formulations to argue that even in the West, the search for an authentic core to one's being foregrounds different paths and conceptions of social relationships for men and women (Sointu and Woodhead 2008). There are parallels between Sointu and Woodhead's descriptions of women's location of selfhood through an 'attempt to reconcile individuality with relationships in a way that can do justice to both', and my young interlocutor's search for the meaning and justification of one's everyday practices without breaking out altogether of the webs of relationships and their understanding of the self-molded by religion (2008,267). ...
Bangladesh has made significant strides on women’s issues in the areas of education, employment and politics. In the wake of this progress, the country has also experienced a surge of religious ideas leading to secular anxiety that cultural Islamization is leaving very tangible marks on the bodies and lives of women. The proliferation of the hijab along with an appropriation of other religio-cultural elements into everyday life is considered to be an example of the force of Islamization that many fear to be conducive to radicalization. In this paper, I probe the role of religion in the lives of female university students in an attempt to assess what it means for them to be young, to have aspirations, to navigate different and often opposing expectations, and to assert their agency as they stand on the cusp of adulthood. In teasing out the influences that give their lives’ navigations religious sanctions and/or approvals, I trace the place of inclusivity, pluralism and tolerance in the lives of young, educated women in Bangladesh.
... En sociologie, la sécularisation -parfois rebaptisée modernité religieuse -est désormais appréhendée moins comme une baisse de la pratique religieuse que comme sa transformation, désormais choisie et négociée par les individus. Des comportements religieux majoritairement féminins -conversions, quête spirituelle, New Age -sont alors analysés comme exemplaires d'une individualisation religieuse dont les femmes seraient l'avant-garde [Sointu et Woodhead, 2008]. Plus largement, l'intérêt porté aux expériences individuelles met au jour la grande diversité des « négociations » avec les normes religieuses sur le genre [Anteby-Yemini, 2014]. ...
Notice de synthèse sur les travaux en sciences sociales sur genre et religion.
Edition entièrement refondue par rapport à la version de 2016.
En ligne sur: https://www.cairn.info/encyclopedie-critique-du-genre--9782348067303-page-665.htm?contenu=article
James Redfield's novel The Celestine Prophecy spent over three years on the New York Times bestseller list and has become an influential work that promotes New Age ideologies to a broad readership. Although New Age spirituality was originally associated with countercultural politics, a structural analysis of The Celestine Prophecy reveals how Redfield mobilizes gendered and racialized tropes to reaffirm rather than challenge hegemonic American culture. An analysis of readers' online reviews finds that despite its lack of literary merit, the text resonates with individuals who feel dominated by powerful others including social institutions and domestic aggressors. Since New Age spirituality predominantly attracts white middle-class women, a close reading investigates what kind of future society The Celestine Prophecy proposes and whom it might serve.
Increasingly popular ‘feminine spiritualities’ urge women to foster personal transformation and social change through spiritual empowerment and healing of ‘the feminine’. However, in spite of feminist undertones, feminism is rarely explicitly evoked, and is often even rejected. Gender scholars have debated over the ambivalent feminism of contemporary spiritualities, which are readily seen as closer to postfeminist rather than feminist ideals, or framed as a form of old-fashioned cultural feminism. While some recent analyses do explore the feminist potential of feminine spiritualities in more positive terms, the debates often lack practitioner perspectives on feminism and deeper considerations of the practitioners’ own self-definitions. Based on ethnographic interview material across Finnish and Anglo-American contexts, this article explores how adherents of feminine spirituality imagine feminism, and whether they consider their spirituality to be feminist or not and why. I argue that while practitioners hold varying, often ambiguous positions in relation to feminism, the narratives iterate shared themes that render feminism and feminine spirituality as incompatible: an emphasis on femininity over feminism, and a focus on spirituality instead of politics. Furthermore, practitioners critique mainstream feminism for being too secular, while often simultaneously agreeing with feminist criticisms of both cultural feminist and postfeminist ideals. I suggest that failing to take the voices of spiritual women into account prevents constructive dialogue and solidarity among secular and spiritual feminists as well as non-feminist women, and offers little room for emerging postsecular feminist identities.
Kirtan as the Eastern practice of accompanied call-and-response singing has secured its place in Finland’s holistic spirituality. It arrived in Finland through Hindu religious movements and has since diversified, incorporating symbols and techniques borrowed from various sources. Holistic spirituality is often understood in terms of embracing the construction of sacred realities through individual practices centered around an “authentic self.” This chapter is based on Heinonen’s fieldwork, which consists of interviews of Finnish “spiritual but not religious” Kirtan practitioners. Heinonen explores the reasons behind practicing Kirtan in Finnish holistic spirituality, how Kirtan informs meaning-making among its practitioners, and the “therapeutic” results expected by its participants. Heinonen understands Kirtan to be associated with positive emotions, experiences of increased psychological well-being, and the therapeutic processing of emotions within collectively created musical and ritual spaces. Examining Kirtan from the perspective of sociology of religion, Heinonen identifies collective emotion, musical intersubjectivity, and face-to-face interaction as the primary causes of Kirtan’s therapeutic results. Heinonen’s results show that among its Finnish practitioners, Kirtan combines musical, emotional, embodied, and relational techniques to produce well-being and spiritual meaning for the individual, fostering an empowering collective practice that sustains holistic spirituality in Finland.
Women's involvement in religion varies depending on whether we are considering personal beliefs and practices or institutional affiliation and leadership. While some women are moving away from traditional western religious institutions because they do not adequately meet their needs or provide the kind of overarching moral narrative that gives meaning to women's lives, religion itself is not inevitably oppressive to women. Gender egalitarianism and strands of women's empowerment exist within most traditions and the historical involvement of women as leaders, teachers, and writers across diverse traditions has often been minimized for political and economic rather than substantially theological reasons.
New Age inanışlar ile neoliberalizmin yükselişinin bir bağlantısı vardır. Neoliberal birey kolektiviteden uzak bir yalnızlık ortamında bir girişimci gibi kendine özgün yeni bir benlik inşa eder. Bu makale neoliberal öznenin özgün benliğini ve gerçekliğini yaratmaya zorlandığı bir sosyal yapı içerisinde yöneldiği öznel bir inanç sistemini konu almaktadır. Makalenin temel argümanı neoliberal özenin acılarını dindirmeye yönelik pek çok inanç ve uygulama sunan New Age’in geç kapitalizmin bir ürünü olduğu üzerinedir. Bu argüman, önce moderniteden postmoderniteye geçişte öznelliğin dönüşümü konusuna; daha sonra postmodernitenin ekonomik altyapısını oluşturan geç kapitalizmde kültürün depolitizasyonu meselesine; akabinde bu depolitize olmuş kültürün içinde gelişen New Age eğilimlerin iyileştirici vaadinin arka planına; son olarak New Age’in içinde konumlandığı yeni paradigma olan Kuantum mistisizmi ve bunun küresel anlamadaki popülerliğinin ardında yatan psikanalitik kökenlere değinilerek geliştirilmektedir.
The creation of Vibrational Essences, including the Edward Bach Flower Remedies, represents a twentieth-century innovation of homeopathy that takes the notion of ingestible healing liquids into entirely new territory. While homeopathic remedies can be understood as a form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), New Age practitioners have expanded the scope of liquid essences to reportedly harness the metaphysical powers of sacred places and otherworldly entities. These essences are best described as hierophagic since they are believed to originate in a divine or semi-divine source and are designed to facilitate spiritual transformation through consumption while delivering sacred knowledge. Following a brief history of Vibrational Essences since the 1930s, a close examination of textual sources investigates how New Age practitioners create these essences through pilgrimage and ritual practices, including communication with intermediary beings. This evidence raises questions about otherworldly agency and contributes new research into spiritual embodiment practices in contemporary esotericism.
This paper discusses a specific set of new shamanic practices recognizable in the Japanese metropolitan context. Three case studies help illustrate the main characteristics of this "new" discourse and lead to a discussion on terminology. To effectively understand and analyze shamanic practices in contemporary Japan, I suggest the use of a new model for the study of shamanism. This could contribute to overcoming prejudicial and polarized views concerning the existence of a "traditional" and thus "authentic" kind of shamanism, on the one hand, and of a "new" and hence "inauthentic" one, on the other.
Our era is marked by ‘therapeutic culture’, referring to the increasing prevalence of therapeutic concepts and psychological knowledge in the way people understand and make sense of their lives. A marked part of therapeutic culture is self-help literature. It comprises a wide array of items that centre around managing everyday life issues, self-development, and psychological growth. Existing research portrays self-help books as deeply individualistic. However, there is little knowledge about the spiritual and religious dimensions of the genre. The aim of this article is to explore human intersubjectivity, and its religious dimensions, in self-help literature. Drawing on a content analysis of eleven self-help books, we address the issues of whether, how, and to what extent self-help books represent humans as relational beings and how the notions of religion and spirituality underlying the books relate to these issues. The findings illustrate the centrality of intersubjectivity in the genre. The conclusions on religion are multifaceted: spirituality in the books has positive connotations, while institutional religion is seen as negative, or even as a threat, to well-being and intersubjectivity.
Die alternativ-spirituelle Gruppe Terra Sagrada, die sich den afro-brasilianischen Traditionen des Candomblés und der Umbanda zuschreibt, wird hauptsächlich von Frauen mit einem psycho-sozialen beruflichen Hintergrund besucht und kultiviert. Dieser gegenderten Attraktion der Geisterinkorporation wird sich auf Grundlage von Interviews und Ritualteilnahmen genähert, um den besonderen Reiz dieses Rituals für Frauen zu beleuchten. Neben der Betonung von Körper und Erleben, der Möglichkeit, Selbstwirksamkeit, Kontrolle und Macht zu erleben sowie dem Gemeinschaftssinn ist es vor allem die Vorstellung von Person und Selbst – das sogenannte „innere Team“ –, die die Frauen aus ihren sozialpädagogischen und psychologischen Ausbildungshintergründen kennen und welche nun in diesem religiösen Kontext aktiviert wird. Die Verknüpfung dieser zwei Kontexte ermöglicht die Akzeptanz des Ritualgeschehens und verstärkt die Identifikation mit den spirituellen Vorstellungen der Terra Sagrada.
The chapter argues that the therapeutic field serves as an important site in which gendered contradictions of capitalism are lived out and negotiated. I discuss women’s experiences of and encounters with the therapeutic field, and explore what they find meaningful in therapeutic engagements, and how they make sense of and seek to transform gender relations and identities through therapeutic engagements. The therapeutic field provides women with space for cultural critique of gender, and allows them to take issue with a “deep story of strong femininity” that perceives gender as a pivotal source of domination. Contemporary capitalist society is seen as subjecting women to masculine values and denying vulnerability, while longstanding gendered socialization practices are seen as cultivating women as “good girls” who sacrifice themselves for others and end up reproducing detrimental gendered relations. I suggest that while not often explicitly feminist, many therapeutic practices draw on second-wave feminist thought and techniques in articulating and working on gendered experiences and grievances. I conclude that in therapeutic engagements, personal and social transformations are entangled in complex ways. Although these engagements tend to privilege individualized strategies for self-change, they also open up space to collectively make sense of and contest gendered power and forge solidarity among women.
At 32.3%, Switzerland ranks among countries with the highest rates of cesarean deliveries in Europe. Because cesareans generally negatively influence the birth experience, parents turn to holistic therapists to heal somatic and emotional disorders not addressed by standard biomedical follow-ups. Doula care is still emerging in Switzerland. Although doulas are not allowed in the operation rooms, they support parents before birth and during the postpartum period. They aim at improving the birth experience by restoring intimate, "sacred" elements of birth through symbolic and spiritual practices. Based on interviews with doulas, I explore their experiences and practices regarding surgical birth.
Over the last two decades, mindfulness has become popular in Western countries as part of the well-being movement. The corporate world has taken notice and is now hailing the potential of mindfulness as a tool to increase work performance and employee well-being. This view of mindfulness, however, contains an intrinsic contradiction: the core of mindfulness is derived from Buddhist traditions that accept the present moment without judgement, while neoliberal productivity demands constant renewal and a drive for stronger performance. The ethnographic data for this study was collected in an environment emblematic of the neoliberal service economy: a professional service firm with highly skilled employees. This chapter develops the concept of spiritual labour, which is informed by the ideas of post-secularisation and spirituality in the sociology of religion and the concept of emotional labour in organisational studies. Spiritual labour refers to harnessing the spirituality of the employee and incorporating it into the work of the organisation.
In recent years, the involvement of Swiss wine-crafters (vignerons) with ‘holistic spiritualities’ has become more visible. Through the use of esoterically driven preparations, energetic crystals, and neo-shamanic ‘vision questing’ practices, vignerons have incorporated alternative self-healing practices in their workplace. Under the umbrella term ‘biodynamic farming,’ vignerons are experimenting and delineating a new professional and relational ethos, be it with humans or nonhumans (e.g., grapevines). In the context of the Swiss vineyards, however, the engagement of vignerons with ‘holistic spiritualities’ has also forced them to grapple with potential social stigmas. This article examines the social uses, dynamics, and dilemmas resulting from the gradual ‘spiritualization’ of vignerons’ workplaces.
This article is a proposition and exploration of the term ‘transreligiosity’. We argue that transreligiosity is more apt to describe the transgressive character of religiosity, focusing more particularly on the transversality of spaces, symbolic or otherwise, which are created in religious phenomena. We examine the porosity of religious boundaries and, ultimately, propose the term transreligiosity to embrace them, placing emphasis on their transreligious character, while perceiving them as significant instantiations of transreligiosity. We take some of Latour’s key concepts on ‘purification’, to argue for the ultimate impossibility of it in the sphere of religiosity. While processes of purification have been powerful through efforts to institutionalize and centralize religiosity, at a vernacular level, this has had a contrary effect. Religious subjects have been distanced from a more direct participation (‘mediation’). Hence, they are constantly creating transreligious instances to abolish and transgress those rigid borders.
This article draws from interviews with 67 nonreligious millennials across six countries in 25 European towns and cities, part of a research programme Understanding Unbelief This research was made possible through a grant from the John Templeton Foundation (JTF grant ID#60624 based at the University of Kent). which aims at mapping the global diversity of nonreligion. We contribute to this by examining the diversity of beliefs amongst nonreligious millennials across a range of societies from North West to South Central Europe. We examine how they find and make meaning in their lives and how they deal with death and other existential issues. We further investigate how social and political context and the laws and practices regulating nonreligion shape emergent nonreligious forms, using the example of Poland, and build on the Polish case to examine nonreligious identity building, social activism and institution formation. Finally, we step back to our international comparisons to propose an explanation of the conditions shaping nonreligious identity and group formation.
Over the past two decades, Swiss wine-crafting professionals (vignerons) have increasingly turned their attention toward a ‘holistic’ and ecosystemic understanding of their vineyards. Among them, a growing professional segment has engaged in an esoteric agronomy inspired by Rudolf Steiner: Biodynamics. This approach is illustrative of Bron Taylor’s dark green religion applied to agronomy. This ethnographic study describes and analyzes how Swiss vignerons translate and adapt the legacy of Steiner in their everyday lives. After detailing how practitioners frame their engagement in this agronomy, the author distinguishes two processes in the translation and adaptation of Rudolf Steiner’s insights: (a) secularization, which bridges the guidelines of biodynamics and common secular naturalistic ideas; and (b) spiritualization, which relies on supernaturalistic conceptions in line with ‘expressive selfhood’ and the quest for well-being. The author argues that these two processes do not stand in mutual opposition, but rather have been intertwined in Euro-American modernities.
Among eco-spiritual activists in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, gendered notions such as “Mother Earth” or gendered “nature spirits” are ubiquitous. Drawing on an in-depth ethnographic study of this milieu (2015–2020), this article presents some of the ways in which these activists articulate gender issues with reference to nature. The authors discuss the centrality of the notion of the self and ask what outputs emerge from linking environmental with spiritual action. We demonstrate that activists in three milieus—the New Age and holistic milieu, the transition network, and neo-shamanism—handle this link differently and thereby give birth to a variety of emic perspectives upon the nature/culture divide, as well as upon gender—ranging from essentialist and organicist views to queer approaches. The authors also present more recent observations on the increasing visibility of women and feminists as key public speakers. They conclude with the importance of contextualizing imaginaries that circulate as universalistic and planetary and of relating them to individuals’ gendered selves and their social, political, and economic capital.
Resumen Realizamos trabajo de campo etnográfico y analizamos sentidos y prácticas divergentes hacia talleres de crianza y parto respetado en las periferias de un distrito rural bonaerense. Los objetivos iniciales de estas iniciativas públicas y gratuitas no fueron totalmente alcanzados ya que lograron convocar a menos participantes de lo previsto. Llamamos por lo tanto nominalistas a las mujeres que acuden a los talleres, lugares donde se sostiene que la mujer tiene que volverse una con su “cría” para luego buscar “espacios de autonomía”. Ellas se distinguen a sí mismas de la mayoría de las mujeres que no acude a los talleres. Frente a las primeras, estas últimas no harían un “esfuerzo” ni pondrían atención especial en los procesos de parto y crianza que concebirían como “naturales”. Así se ve como no todo el mundo está “intrínsecamente” atraído por el paradigma del “parto respetado”.
The aim of this case study was to explore the emotional experiences of individuals taking part in non-congregational psychic mediumistic services in Norway. A thematic analysis of interview materials from nine users of mediumistic practices identified an overall pattern of increased self-reported positive emotions and decreased self-reported negative emotions soon after their consultations with the medium. In a few cases, the participants reported increased negative emotions, which were linked to their inability to trust the medium or her delivery of unpleasant messages fromthe dead. The emotional goals and emotional change perceived by the participants were related to their relations with the deceased, their personal futures, and their expectations of an afterlife. The results of this study are discussed from the perspective of emotion regulation theory, with a focus on the individual and social aspects of the process of emotional change.
The emergence of New Age spirituality in Western cultures during the 1960s and 1970s has been described as a rejection of traditional values, fuelled by disillusionment with the Christian church and a feeling of alienation in mainstream social and work environments. While New Age has been characterised as a ‘turning away’ from dominant cultural ideologies, there is comparatively less discussion about what New Age actors are ‘turning towards’ in their pursuit of subjective spirituality. Research from Australia demonstrates that individuals were primarily searching for deeper meaning and looking for spiritual answers when they first engaged with New Age pursuits. In addition, social and intergenerational transmission are both important factors in the cultivation of New Age spirituality.
In the contemporary UK, holistic practices – concerned with healing an interconnected mind, body, and spirit of the person – appear to be establishing themselves across more popular, or ‘mainstream’ settings. Simultaneously, the UK has seen increasing numbers of individuals identifying as not religious, and within this a significant population identifying specifically as ‘Spiritual But Not Religious’ (hereafter SBNR). This work consists of a survey that explores British holistic practitioners’ understandings and experiences of spirituality in relation to their practices. It identifies and compares answers across three groups of practitioners: the SBNR, the other not religious, and the religious. Findings demonstrate little difference between SBNR and other participants’ understandings and experiences of spirituality through their practice. Regardless of their varying identities, British holistic practitioners largely favoured the incorporation of ‘spirituality’ into their practice yet wished to distance their practice from ‘religion’. For many practitioners, this meant a desire to keep holistic practice separate from notions of ‘dogma’ or ‘institution’ that may restrict themselves or others from engaging with holistic spirituality. Attention is also given to the implication that, for some, this rejection of ‘religion’ may more specifically reflect a rejection of association with Christianity. Findings suggest that SBNR holistic practitioners do not particularly present as a distinct group with unique beliefs. Rather, it would appear that an engagement with ‘spirituality-without-religion’ is embraced within the UK holistic practitioner community as a whole.
Alternative therapies which aim to enhance women’s wellbeing have been accused of contributing to healthist and postfeminist agendas which rest upon a neoliberal logic. I critically engage with this issue here through an ethnographic study of womb yoga, a women’s alternative therapy developed in the UK. I argue that while being commercial and emphasizing personal responsibility, womb yoga largely works against the current neoliberal optimization ideal. Womb yoga practitioners dismiss goal-oriented self-management and discipline, and avoid a simple reproduction of gender stereotypes by deflecting care away from other-directedness and opening the interpretation of femininity to the imaginative and experiential realms.
This article contributes to the discussion on reactions and responses to the coronavirus pandemic in Japan, with specific reference to the field of “new spirituality” and, within this broad category, of shamanic spirituality. The case of the dance therapist, or “dance movement shaman,” Ms. Hiroda demonstrates how she managed to keep in contact with her practitioners and to design new ways to help them cope with the situation. The solution she offers, in line with the characteristics of shamanic spirituality, is to help each individual to acknowledge the importance of interconnectedness. In particular, Ms. Hiroda emphasizes body, community, and nature: to become aware of one’s own body again and of the necessity of connection with others and nature, especially in times of interpersonal distancing and crisis. Her response to the first wave of COVID-19 is thus to offer a strategy to live peacefully with—and despite—the virus.
In contemporary Portugal and Greece, the number of individuals who resort to alternative medicine continues to rise. From yoga, meditation and energy therapies to healing based on various religio-spiritual traditions, there is a variety of therapeutic practices one can choose from. The main objective of this paper is to show how a therapeutic and spiritual pluralism is produced through the implementation of transnational influences on spirituality and healing. It investigates the diverse ways in which the practice of spirituality through healing leads to a better understanding of how current processes of globalisation, transnationalism and multiculturalism affect, develop and negotiate one’s individual, social, spiritual and medical identity. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Lisbon and Athens, the Portuguese and Greek capital equivalently, the paper explores the pluralistic and transnational character of alternative medicine and the spiritual creativity with which such therapies are practised. Taking the role of the (spiritual) holistic practitioner as healer as a point of departure, it provides an empirical account of the shifting status of both religiosity and healthcare in two southern European countries that are still followed by the stereotype of being predominantly linked to Christianity as the denominational religion, and to biomedicine as the predominant healthcare system.
This paper is mainly based on interviews and observations that the author made during the process of writing a book about a hundred forms of religious and spiritual movements, teachings, and techniques in Estonia, thus being a reflection of trends and transformations of spiritual thought and practice in a country that has been repeatedly called the least religious country in Europe or even the whole world. Bringing some topical case analyses from this empirical material, the article will offer an amended interpretative framework for discussing features that are relevant in the research of Western contemporary spiritualities, for example multiple, situational, and fluctuating spiritual identities incongruent with the use of stable categories in religiosity statistics; children as important spiritual agents; mediatized liquidity and hybridity of spiritual thought being part of the ‘all-inclusive’ and ‘open-ended’ spiritual environment; and public conflicts and private symbioses of scientific, spiritual, and religious worldviews.
El artículo describe y analiza la circulación de prácticas y discursos asociados con la espiritualidad Nueva Era en circuitos que promueven la cultura emprendedora. Para ello se avanza en un análisis de los discursos de oradores/as y su marco de enunciación en dos eventos públicos en la ciudad argentina de Córdoba, interesados en la difusión del “espíritu emprendedor”: Experiencia Endeavor y 7 Reinas – Movimiento de Motivación Femenina. Los resultados, aunque tentativos, permiten reflexionar sobre las miradas convencionales que conciben al ámbito económico como racional y secular. Asimismo, dan cuenta de un proceso de reactualización y renovación del discurso gerencial contemporáneo a través de la incorporación de prácticas y discursos asociados con la espiritualidad Nueva Era.
This article surveys the range of positions from which religious studies scholars have generally responded to the spiritual turn. We classify these as: the sociology of religion approach, the critical religion approach, and the practical study for spirituality by professional fields like business, education, and healthcare. In light of recent cultural sociological and historical scholarship on the emic folk category “spirituality” we argue that, given their foundational assumptions, each of these approaches is inadequate for achieving an accurate empirical account of the spiritual turn. We argue that for sociology of religion and critical religion to adequately respond to the professional study for spirituality, they must begin to reckon with the minority consensus developed by cultural sociologists about the spiritual turn. The minority consensus holds that the spiritual turn comprises two components: first, a semantic shift from “religion” to “spirituality,” and second, the crystallization and spread of a shared cultural structure. Coming to terms with this approach will require scholars of religion to reconsider both their assumptions about the category “religion” as well as the limits of their discipline.
Most users of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) approach it differently than physicians, because they employ informal knowledge, based on their experiences, beliefs, and values. Mary Ruggie stresses that, although physicians also use informal knowledge from their clinical experience to understand patients and their needs, they rely on formal knowledge, based on science, to understand medicine. Thus, if CAM is going to become a legitimate part of health care, physicians must insist that scientific research prove its safety and efficacy.
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is increasingly utilized and accepted by patients and providers throughout the American health care system. Most accounts attribute this growing acceptability to the shortcomings of conventional medicine, the appeal of CAM's core beliefs, and the growing body of research indicating that CAM actually works. These explanations, while all accurate to some degree, neglect the extent to which CAM's recent success is due to economic and political factors. This article describes the emerging relationship between CAM and major economic actors (pharmaceutical firms, managed care companies, insurance companies, media conglomerates, Internet providers, etc.) as well as CAM's relationship with a range of political forces (political parties, bureaucrats, lobbying groups, ethnic- and gender-based movements and organizations, etc.). The convergence of interests between these economic and political forces and many of CAM's goals is one important reason for CAM's recent success.
The understanding and interpretation of the presumed "secularization" of Britain and other European nations is clouded by a lack of adequate information regarding the substance and timing of religious change. This paper represents the first systematic effort to collect and analyze existing survey data on religious belief in Britain from the late 1930s to the present. Overall, the results show an increase in general scepticism about the existence of God, the related erosion of dominant, traditional Christian beliefs, and the persistence of nontraditional beliefs. A theoretical perspective is needed that recognizes the often corrosive effects of modern life on the transmission of religious beliefs and the continued popularity of worldviews which presume a transcendent referent, however broadly defined.
The present study attempts to measure how individuals define the terms religiousness and spirituality, to measure how individuals define their own religiousness and spirituality, and to examine whether these definitions are associated with different demographic, religio/spiritual, and psychosocial variables. The complete sample of 346 individuals was composed of 11 groups of participants drawn from a wide range of religious backgrounds. Analyses were conducted to compare participants' self-rated religiousness and spirituality, to correlate self-rated religiousness and spirituality with the predictor variables, and to use the predictor variables to distinguish between participants who described themselves as "spiritual and religious" from those who identified themselves as "spiritual but not religious." A content analysis of participants' definitions of religiousness and spirituality was also performed. The results suggest several points of convergence and divergence between the constructs religiousness and spirituality. The theoretical, empirical, and practical implications of these results for the scientific study of religion are discussed.
Whilst much research into alternative and complementary medicine use indicates that these practices enable experiences of control, agency and empowerment, few theoretically informed answers have been given to why and how consultations with alternative and complementary health practitioners facilitate experiences that are felt to be ‘healing’.This article utilizes theories of recognition in order to reflect on the healing experiences of women seeking health and wellbeing through varied forms of alternative and complementary medicine. I analyse the empowering and agency-giving aspects of alternative and complementary medicines, in particular in relation to wider societal conceptualizations of the self. This article is based on qualitative interviews with both practitioners and clients of varying alternative and complementary medicines.
Welfare state The classic welfare state The restructured welfare state The modern welfare state Economic explanations Political explanations Organizational explanations Social explanations Welfare change Further Reading References Index.
In this research, the authors integrated research on stereotyping and health to document relationship-status stereotyping about sexual risk. Drawing on research on relational schemas and implicit personality theories, the authors hypothesized that targets who were described as being in relationships would be perceived as having a lesser likelihood of risk for sexually transmitted diseases than would targets who were described as single. Gender of the targets and gender of the participants also were examined as potential moderating variables. In five vignette studies, people rated single targets as having more risky personality traits and higher probabilistic risk for STDs than partnered targets. They also reported a greater desire to be involved with someone similar to the partnered target. In general, male and female targets were perceived similarly; however, female targets were rated as having a lower probabilistic risk.
The starting point for this paper is a review of the literature, which seeks to explain the use of alternative medicines, therapies and practices in developed countries. Using the Statistics Canada 1996–97 National Population Health Survey—Health File, we then examine the profile of alternative service users. Our analysis shows that use of alternative health care is still limited to a relatively small segment of Canadians whose profile is similar to those in other developed countries. Women are more likely than men to use alternative medicines, therapies and practices, as are those who have higher incomes and are better educated. To move what has been an essentially empirical discussion forward, we explore critiques of conventional medical practice and propose that the analysis of alternative health care be situated within the geographies of consumption.
A first aim of the present chapter is to provide evidence for the spread of spirituality during the last few decades by studying spiritual beliefs and self-designations among the general populations of Western countries. This chapter’s more important second aim is to refine Houtman and Mascini’s (2002) theory that the spread of spirituality is caused by a process of detraditionalisation. This refinement is called for, because in its original form it cannot explain the high levels of affinity with spirituality among women (although it does a good job in explaining those among the younger age cohorts and the well educated). With men and women being identical when it comes to levels of post-traditionalism, the question why women nevertheless display more affinity with spirituality than men remains ‘an intriguing and theoretically important puzzle to be solved’ (Houtman and Mascini, 2002: 468). Solving this ‘gender puzzle’ (Heelas et al., 2004) requires gendering the theory of detraditionalisation (see also Woodhead 2005, forthcoming
2006). The second aim of the present chapter, in short, is to develop and test a gendered version of the theory of detraditionalisation.
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is increasingly utilized and accepted by patients and providers throughout the American health care system. Most accounts attribute this growing acceptability to the shortcomings of conventional medicine, the appeal of CAM's core beliefs, and the growing body of research indicating that CAM actually works. These explanations, while all accurate to some degree, neglect the extent to which CAM's recent success is due to economic and political factors. This article describes the emerging relationship between CAM and major economic actors (pharmaceutical firms, managed care companies, insurance companies, media conglomerates, Internet providers, etc.) as well as CAM's relationship with a range of political forces (political parties, bureaucrats, lobbying groups, ethnic- and gender-based movements and organizations, etc.). The convergence of interests between these economic and political forces and many of CAM's goals is one important reason for CAM's recent success.
Context.—
Research both in the United States and abroad suggests that significant
numbers of people are involved with various forms of alternative medicine.
However, the reasons for such use are, at present, poorly understood.Objective.—
To investigate possible predictors of alternative health care use.Methods.—
Three primary hypotheses were tested. People seek out these alternatives
because (1) they are dissatisfied in some way with conventional treatment;
(2) they see alternative treatments as offering more personal autonomy and
control over health care decisions; and (3) the alternatives are seen as more
compatible with the patients' values, worldview, or beliefs regarding the
nature and meaning of health and illness. Additional predictor variables explored
included demographics and health status.Design.—
A written survey examining use of alternative health care, health status,
values, and attitudes toward conventional medicine. Multiple logistic regression
analyses were used in an effort to identify predictors of alternative health
care use.Setting and Participants.—
A total of 1035 individuals randomly selected from a panel who had agreed
to participate in mail surveys and who live throughout the United States.Main Outcome Measure.—
Use of alternative medicine within the previous year.Results.—
The response rate was 69%.The following variables emerged as predictors
of alternative health care use: more education (odds ratio [OR], 1.2; 95%
confidence interval [CI], 1.1-1.3); poorer health status (OR, 1.3; 95% CI,
1.1-1.5); a holistic orientation to health (OR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.1-1.9); having
had a transformational experience that changed the person's worldview (OR,
1.8; 95% CI, 1.3-2.5); any of the following health problems: anxiety (OR,
3.1; 95% CI, 1.6-6.0); back problems (OR, 2.3; 95% CI, 1.7-3.2); chronic pain
(OR, 2.0; 95% CI, 1.1-3.5); urinary tract problems (OR, 2.2; 95% CI, 1.3-3.5);
and classification in a cultural group identifiable by their commitment to
environmentalism, commitment to feminism, and interest in spirituality and
personal growth psychology (OR, 2.0; 95% CI, 1.4-2.7). Dissatisfaction with
conventional medicine did not predict use of alternative medicine. Only 4.4%
of those surveyed reported relying primarily on alternative therapies.Conclusion.—
Along with being more educated and reporting poorer health status, the
majority of alternative medicine users appear to be doing so not so much as
a result of being dissatisfied with conventional medicine but largely because
they find these health care alternatives to be more congruent with their own
values, beliefs, and philosophical orientations toward health and life.
IN 1993 Eisenberg and colleagues1 reported
that 34% of adults in the United States used at least 1 unconventional form
of health care (defined as those practices "neither taught widely in U.S.
medical schools nor generally available in U.S. hospitals") during the previous
year. The most frequently used alternatives to conventional medicine were
relaxation techniques, chiropractic, and massage. Although educated, middle-class
white persons between the ages of 25 and 49 years were the most likely ones
to use alternative medicine, use was not confined to any particular segment
of the population. These researchers estimated that Americans made 425 million
visits to alternative health care providers in 1990, a figure that exceeded
the number of visits to allopathic primary care physicians during the same
period.
Recent studies in the United States2
and abroad3- 4 support the prevalent
use of alternative health care. For example, a 1994 survey of physicians from
a wide array of medical specialties (in Washington State, New Mexico, and
Israel) revealed that more than 60% recommended alternative therapies to their
patients at least once in the preceding year, while 38% had done so in the
previous month.2 Forty-seven percent of these
physicians also reported using alternative therapies themselves, while 23%
incorporated them into their practices.
When faced with the apparent popularity of unconventional medical practices
and the fact that people seem quite willing to pay out-of-pocket for these
services,1 the question arises: What are the
sociocultural and personal factors (health status, beliefs, attitudes, motivations)
underlying a person's decision to use alternative therapies?
At present, there is no clear or comprehensive theoretical model to
account for the increasing use of alternative forms of health care. Accordingly,
the goal of the present study was to develop some tentative explanatory models
that might account for this phenomenon.
Three theories that have been proposed to explain the use of alternative
medicine were tested:
Dissatisfaction: Patients are dissatisfied with
conventional treatment because it has been ineffective,5- 6
has produced adverse effects,6- 7
or is seen as impersonal, too technologically oriented, and/or too costly.6- 15Need for personal control: Patients seek alternative
therapies because they see them as less authoritarian16
and more empowering and as offering them more personal autonomy and control
over their health care decisions.14,16- 19Philosophical congruence: Alternative therapies
are attractive because they are seen as more compatible with patients' values,
worldview, spiritual/religious philosophy, or beliefs regarding the nature
and meaning of health and illness.19- 24
In addition to testing the validity of these 3 theoretical perspectives,
this study also sought to determine on an exploratory basis how the decision
to seek alternative therapies is affected by patients' health status and demographic
factors.
“Public” life once meant that vital part one’s life outside the circle of family and close friends. Connecting with strangers in an emotionally satisfying way and yet remaining aloof from them was seen as the means by which the human animal was transformed into the social – the civilized – being. And the fullest flowering of that public life was realized in the 18th Century in the great capital cities of Europe.
Sennett shows how our lives today are bereft of the pleasures and reinforcements of this lost interchange with fellow citizens. He shows how, today, the stranger is a threatening figure; how silence and observation have become the only ways to experience public life, especially street life, without feeling overwhelmed ; how each person believes in the right, in public, to be left alone. And he makes clear how, because of the change in public life, private life becomes distorted as we of necessity focus more and more on ourselves, on increasingly narcissistic forms of intimacy and self-absorption. Because of this, our personalities cannot fully develop: we lack much of the ease, the spirit of play, the kind of discretion that would allow us real and pleasurable relationships with those whom we may never know intimately.
Contemporary sociology conceptualizes religion along two dimensions: the institutional and the individual. Lost in this dichotomy is religion's noninstitutional, but collective and public, cultural dimension. As a result, theories of religious modernity, including both sides of the secularization debate, are unable to recognize or evaluate the social power of noninstitutionalized religious communication. This article offers a reconceptualization of religion that highlights its cultural, communicative dimension. Original research on religious talk provides an empirical ground for a theoretical discussion that highlights: (1) the “invisible” nature of religion in modern societies, as theorized by Thomas Luckmann and (2) the social power attributed to communication by contemporary cultural sociologists and cultural theorists. I argue that conceptualizing religion as an evolving societal conversation about transcendent meaning broadens the empirical and theoretical grasp of the religion concept.
Recent discussions of religious attitudes and behavior tend to suggest—and in a few cases, provide evidence—that Americans are becoming “more spiritual” and “less religious.” What do people mean, however, when they say they are “spiritual” or “religious”? Do Americans see these concepts as definitionally or operationally different? If so, does that difference result in a zero-sum dynamic between them? In this article, we explore the relationship between “being religious” and “being spiritual” in a national sample of American Protestants and compare our findings to other studies, including Wade Clark Roof’s baby-boomer research (1993, 2000), 1999 Gallup and 2000 Spirituality and Health polls, and the Zinnbauer et al. (1997) study of religious definitions. In addition to presenting quantitative and qualitative evidence about the way people think about their religious/spiritual identity, the article draws implications about modernity, the distinctiveness of religious change in the recent past, and the deinstitutionalization of religion.
Wellbeing is a quality in demand in today's society. Wellbeing is virtue that is much desired, much promoted, and much debated. Yet, as an ideal, wellbeing is not a concept set in stone. Rather, conceptualisations and experiences of wellbeing are produced in and through wider social perceptions and practices. This article outlines and analyses contemporary conceptualisations of wellbeing and suggests that ideas of wellbeing capture and reproduce important social norms. Indeed, the increasing popularity of the ideal of wellbeing appears to reflect shifts in perceptions and experiences of individual agency and responsibility. In particular, dominant discourses of wellbeing relate to changes in subjectivity; they manifest a move from subjects as citizens to subjects as consumers. In a consumer society, wellbeing emerges as a normative obligation chosen and sought after by individual agents. This article is informed by social theories of subjectivity and critical analyses of selected newspaper reports from 1985 to 2003.
From feng shui to holistic medicine, from aromatherapy candles to yoga weekends, spirituality is big business. It promises to soothe away the angst of modern living, and to offer an antidote to shallow materialism. Selling Spirituality is a short, sharp attack on this fallacy. It shows how spirituality has in fact become a powerful commodity in the global marketplace--a cultural addiction that reflects orthodox politics, curbs self-expression and colonizes Eastern beliefs. Exposing how spirituality has today come to embody the privatization of religion in the modern West, Jeremy Carrette and Richard King reveal the people and brands who profit from this corporate hijack, and explore how spirituality can be reclaimed as a means of resistance to capitalism and its frauds.
Three prominent social thinkers discuss how modern society is undercutting its formations of class, stratum, occupations, sex roles, the nuclear family, and more. Reflexive modernization, or the way one kind of modernization undercuts and changes another, has wide ranging implications for contemporary social and cultural theory, as this provocative book demonstrates.
This research examines trends in coverage of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in five prestigious medical journals during a period of intense reorganization within medicine (1965-1999). Content analysis of a sample of documents (N = 102) shows the medical profession responded to the growth of CAM in three distinct phases. During each phase, changes in the medical marketplace - such as relaxed medical licensing, the development of managed care, rising consumerism, and the establishment of the Office of Alternative Medicine - influenced the type of response in the journals. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, during the condemnation phase, authors ridiculed, exaggerated the risks, and petitioned the state to contain CAM. In the reassessment phase (mid-1970s through early 1990s), increased consumer utilization of CAM prompted concern, and authors pondered whether patient dissatisfaction and shortcomings in conventional care contributed to this trend. Throughout the 1990s, in the integration phase, struggles to outlaw CAM were abandoned, physicians began learning to work around or administer CAM, and the subjugation of CAM to scientific scrutiny became the primary means of control. This analysis demonstrates the evolutionary process of professionalization, a process in which dominance is sustained through adaptation to structural change. © 2005 by Society for the Study of Social Problems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Thesis--Harvard. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 612-624). Microfilm (negative) of typescript. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Library Microreproduction Service, 1978. -- 1 reel ; 35 mm.
Powers of Freedom, first published in 1999, offers a compelling approach to the analysis of political power which extends Foucault's hypotheses on governmentality in challenging ways. Nikolas Rose sets out the key characteristics of this approach to political power and analyses the government of conduct. He analyses the role of expertise, the politics of numbers, technologies of economic management and the political uses of space. He illuminates the relation of this approach to contemporary theories of 'risk society' and 'the sociology of governance'. He argues that freedom is not the opposite of government but one of its key inventions and most significant resources. He also seeks some rapprochement between analyses of government and the concerns of critical sociology, cultural studies and Marxism, to establish a basis for the critique of power and its exercise. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in political theory, sociology, social policy and cultural studies.
Over 250 patients from three complementary medicine practices—acupuncture, osteopathy and homoeopathy-completed a questionnaire rating 20 potential reasons for seeking complementary treatment. The reasons that were most strongly endorsed were ‘because I value the emphasis on treating the whole person’; ‘because I believe complementary therapy will be more effective for my problem than orthodox medicine’; ‘because I believe that complementary medicine will enable me to take a more active part in maintaining my health’; and ‘because orthodox treatment was not effective for my particular problem’.
Five factors were identified, in order of importance: a positive valuation of complementary treatment, the ineffectiveness of orthodox treatment for their complaint, concern about the adverse effects of orthodox medicine, concerns about communication with doctors and, of less importance, the availability of complementary medicine. Groups were compared, using analysis of covariance to control for demographic differences between the three patient groups.
Osteopathy patients' reasons indicated they were least concerned about the side effects of orthodox medicine and most influenced by the availability of osteopathy for their complaints. Homoeopathy patients were most strongly influenced by the ineffectiveness of orthodox medicine for their complaints, a fact which was largely accounted for by the chronicity of their complaints. Results are discussed in terms of the limited research in this area. Future studies should separate the reasons for beginning complementary treatment from the reasons for continuing it. It is possible, for instance, that the failure of orthodox medicine is the strongest motive for seeking complementary treatment but that, once treatment has been experienced, other more positive factors become more important.
This study investigated some of the factors associated with the choice of alternative health therapy that have attracted the greatest attention in the largely exploratory research carried out to date. Patients of an alternative health centre and a comparable community sample were interviewed by telephone. The alternative therapy respondents showed a substantially lower level of confidence in the efficacy of conventional medicine in general, but they were not clearly less satisfied with their recent experiences with medical practitioners and treatment. Even though there was no evidence that they suffered more from persistent medical conditions, they were clearly less satisfied with the ability of conventional treatment to relieve them. Alternative therapy respondents preferred alternative treatment for a wide range of symptoms, but they were selective in their choices of treatment. They perceived themselves to be substantially more "unconventional" than did the community sample. Overall, the variables that best distinguished the alternative therapy group from the community sample were "unconventionality" and "general lack of confidence in conventional medical treatment", both of which made significant independent contributions. It is suggested that research in the area should now move from an exploratory approach to the testing of explicit explanatory propositions.
This paper reports on research conducted in a large Canadian city during 1994-1995. The study examines the motivations of patients who choose to seek care from one of five different types of practitioners: family physicians, chiropractors, acupuncturists/traditional Chinese doctors, naturopaths and Reiki practitioners. We use the Andersen socio-behavioural model to help explain why people choose orthodox medicine or a type of alternative care. The data are derived from face to face interviews with 300 patients: 60 from each of the five modes of treatment. The findings demonstrate that this model can explain the use of alternative as well as orthodox medical services. Patients choose specific kinds of practitioners for particular problems, and some use a mixture of practitioners to treat a specific complaint. The choice of type of practitioner(s) is multidimensional and cannot solely be explained either by disenchantment with medicine or by an "alternative ideology".
Research both in the United States and abroad suggests that significant numbers of people are involved with various forms of alternative medicine. However, the reasons for such use are, at present, poorly understood.
To investigate possible predictors of alternative health care use.
Three primary hypotheses were tested. People seek out these alternatives because (1) they are dissatisfied in some way with conventional treatment; (2) they see alternative treatments as offering more personal autonomy and control over health care decisions; and (3) the alternatives are seen as more compatible with the patients' values, worldview, or beliefs regarding the nature and meaning of health and illness. Additional predictor variables explored included demographics and health status.
A written survey examining use of alternative health care, health status, values, and attitudes toward conventional medicine. Multiple logistic regression analyses were used in an effort to identify predictors of alternative health care use.
A total of 1035 individuals randomly selected from a panel who had agreed to participate in mail surveys and who live throughout the United States.
Use of alternative medicine within the previous year.
The response rate was 69%. The following variables emerged as predictors of alternative health care use: more education (odds ratio [OR], 1.2; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.1-1.3); poorer health status (OR, 1.3; 95% CI, 1.1-1.5); a holistic orientation to health (OR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.1-1.9); having had a transformational experience that changed the person's worldview (OR, 1 .8; 95% CI, 1 .3-2.5); any of the following health problems: anxiety (OR, 3.1; 95% CI, 1.6-6.0); back problems (OR, 2.3; 95% CI, 1 .7-3.2); chronic pain (OR, 2.0; 95% CI, 1.1 -3.5); urinarytract problems (OR, 2.2; 95% CI, 1.3-3.5); and classification in a cultural group identifiable by their commitment to environmentalism, commitment to feminism, and interest in spirituality and personal growth psychology (OR, 2.0; 95% CI, 1.4-2.7). Dissatisfaction with conventional medicine did not predict use of alternative medicine. Only 4.4% of those surveyed reported relying primarily on alternative therapies.
Along with being more educated and reporting poorer health status, the majority of alternative medicine users appear to be doing so not so much as a result of being dissatisfied with conventional medicine but largely because they find these health care alternatives to be more congruent with their own values, beliefs, and philosophical orientations toward health and life.
Many claims are made that complementary medicine use is a substantial and growing part of health-care behaviour. Estimates of practitioner visits in the USA and Australia indicate high levels of use and expenditure. No reliable population-based estimates of practitioner use are available for the UK.
In 1998, a previously piloted postal questionnaire was sent to a geographically stratified, random sample of 5010 adults in England. The questionnaire focuses on practitioner contacts, but also asked about the purchase of over-the-counter remedies. Additional information was requested on socio-demographic characteristics, perceived health, and recent NHS resource use. Information on use included reason for encounter, expenditure, insurance, and location of visit.
Population estimates (by age group and sex) of lifetime use and use in the past 12 months for acupuncture, chiropractic, homoeopathy, hypnotherapy, medical herbalism, osteopathy. Estimates for two additional therapies (reflexology and aromatherapy), and homoeopathic or herbal remedies purchased over-the-counter. Estimates of annual out-of-pocket expenditure on practitioner visits in 1998.
A crude response rate of 60% was achieved (adjusted response rate 59%). Responders were older and more likely to be female than non-responders. Usable responses (n = 2669) were weighted using the age/sex profile of the sample frame. From these adjusted data we estimate that 10.6% (95% CI 9.4 to 11.7) of the adult population of England had visited at least one therapist providing any one of the six more established therapies in the past 12 months (13.6% for use of any of the eight named therapies, 95% CI 12.3 to 14.9). If all eight therapies, and self-care using remedies purchased over the counter are included, the estimated proportion rises to 28.3% (95% CI 26.6 to 30.0) for use in the past 12 months, and 46.6% (95% CI 44.6 to 48.5) for lifetime use. All types of use declined in older age groups, and were more commonly reported by women than men (P < 0.01 for all comparisons). An estimated 22 million visits were made to practitioners of one of the six established therapies in 1998. The NHS provided an estimated 10% of these contacts. The majority of non-NHS visits were financed through direct out-of-pocket expenditure. Annual out-of-pocket expenditure on any of the six more established therapies was estimated at pound 450 million (95% CI 357 to 543).
This survey has demonstrated substantial use of practitioner-provided complementary therapies in England in 1998. The findings suggest that CAM is making a measurable contribution to first-contact primary care. However, we have shown that 90% of this provision is purchased privately. Further research into the cost-effectiveness of different CAM therapies for particular patient groups is now urgently needed to facilitate equal and appropriate access via the NHS.
The starting point for this paper is a review of the literature, which seeks to explain the use of alternative medicines, therapies and practices in developed countries. Using the Statistics Canada 1996-97 National Population Health Survey--Health File, we then examine the profile of alternative service users. Our analysis shows that use of alternative health care is still limited to a relatively small segment of Canadians whose profile is similar to those in other developed countries. Women are more likely than men to use alternative medicines, therapies and practices, as are those who have higher incomes and are better educated. To move what has been an essentially empirical discussion forward, we explore critiques of conventional medical practice and propose that the analysis of alternative health care be situated within the geographies of consumption.